STLfan Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 The current A10 Charlotte Dayton Duquesne Fordham George Washington LaSalle UMass Richmond Rhode Island Saint Louis St. Bonaventure St. Joseph's Temple Xavier Or The current MVC plus Butler, Dayton, Saint Louis, and Xavier Bradley Butler Creighton Dayton Drake Evansville Illinois State Indiana State Missouri State Northern Iowa Saint Louis Southern Illinois Wichita State Xavier Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SShoe Posted May 6, 2007 Share Posted May 6, 2007 the current MVC + Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevinfootes Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 They win their conference and get to the big dance almost every year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidlee Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 The only other teams that I can think of that might fit IF SLU, X, and Dayton were to move (and that is a big if in my mine) would be Oral Roberts or Valpo. I know both teams have had some success over the years but I haven't followed them very closely. Does anyone know much about them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BLIKNS Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 I think I remember Valpo is moving to the Horizon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 drake and evansville have had losing seasons 8 out of the last 9 seasons. indiana state, illinois state and northern iowa 5 out of 9. i'd rather be in the a-10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianstl Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 With the recent changes that have been made, we are all thinking to small. SLU has positioned itself to be a leader in a realignment process instead of a followerer or a program hoping to get asked to join. The best thing that could happen is the Big East having a blow-up between basketball and football. If that doesn't happen in a few years you look to form a new conference only of similar schools. It doesn't have to be a 14 team conference. All you need is 8-10 schools that are the right schools. If you would have some kind of combo of SLU, XU, Dayton, St Joes, Creighton, Loyola, Charlotte, Butler, GW, Fordham, Bradley, and a Detroit Mercy you have a league that would be perfect. You have a combination of teams that are proven winners, have large media makets, and/or located in hot beds of high school talent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slufanskip Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 not only does it not have to be a 14 team league, lets pray it's not. 14 teams is stupid. You can't have a fair conference when teams don't play the same opponents. 10 teams is ideal, even 9 though an odd number is good. I don't even like 12 as you get situations like the Big 12 where one half is consistently better than the other. We also had the same in CUSA. It was so off in that league it was ridiculous. The 6 in our division Cinci, Louisville, Marquette, DePaul, Charlotte, and us were up there with almost any conference in the country. I'd have to think about who I would want but maybe 5 midwest Catholic schools maybe SLU, X, Creighton, DePaul and Dayton (cath?) and 5 Eastern Cath schools maybe St.Joes, UMass, GW ... and a couple others. I'd love to have Marquette also. I'm not sure unless football causes a breakup of the Big East Marq and DePaul would even have an interest. But I think a 10 team league with 5 midwest and 5 Eastern Catholic schools would be ideal Official Billikens.com sponsor of H Waldman Official Sponser of the Stemmler and Ahearn could and would have helped club. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STLfan Posted May 7, 2007 Author Share Posted May 7, 2007 "drake and evansville have had losing seasons 8 out of the last 9 seasons. indiana state, illinois state and northern iowa 5 out of 9. i'd rather be in the a-10" How is that different than the bottom feeders in the A10? At least those schools have decent facilities and draw fans. One of the things that I hate about the A10 is the tiny gyms and the fact that for some of these teams it is a good year if they can draw 3,000 people a game. Heck in 2006 Duquesne barely drew 1,500 a game at 1,528. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bauman Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 Dayton is Cath, but UMASS & GW are not. I don't like either of the initial choices much, but prefer the A-10 over the MVC+ option. I'd like to see SLU Dayton X DePaul Marquette Creighton Det. Mercy St. Joe. this makes for a large to semi-large city grouping of Catholic, primarily midwestern schools. St Joe is somewhat of a geographic stretch and Det. would have to improve to compete but this would be a great group of Conf foes which I would love to see at the Fetz yearly. This size Conf (8) would also allow us to play some "lesser" local area schools such as SIU-C, U.MO and SWMoSt. as buy games most years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 i couldnt care less what the gym sizes are for any of our opponents and if you could please, explain whey we should care? as to how it is different, again i base my thinking on my opinion after seeing slu play the number 1 and number 3 teams of the mvc and comparing that to the top 8 teams in the a-10 which i think were all at least as good if not better than missouri state. i.e. the top of the a-10 is easily as good the middle is much better and both conferences have bottom feeders. now add in the fact that the a-10 is more visible nationally just because they are mostly based in metro areas instead of the middle of nowhere. now add in the likelihood that more schools (save creighton and bradley) are like institutions. add in that slu is recruiting the joe normal student from the metro areas that the a-10 schools are from. i'm sorry, unless the plan is to make sure that 50-60 people are able to travel to the away games by driving their minivans to the school easier, i just dont see the advantage to being in the mvc. sure the mvc has a fantastic leader in doug elgin and the a-10 has linda bruno. but one would hope that eventually the a-10 figures that stuff out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianstl Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 DePaul and Marquette out of the mix. Unless the Big East blows up that is noy going to happen. I also think you have to consider non-catholic schools that have similar athletic goals and admission policies to get the number of teams needed and the overall quality to a desired level. I love the eight team conference set-up, but I think you might have to go to ten to make sure you can generate enough interest for TV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STLfan Posted May 7, 2007 Author Share Posted May 7, 2007 I think people are thinking what is the best that we can do for now. Obviously we would all love to form a conference of some sort with the Big East basketball schools but the question is how long do we wait and where do we do it. Where should we be right now to improve our program while we wait and see? Of course you don't need 14 teams. I actually dislike the idea of a 14 team conference but I used that above because that is what we are currently in and because that’s the only way that I see the current 10 team Valley taking Dayton, Xavier, and SLU would be with a fourth member since they have already said they aren't kicking anyone out. I don't think a conference should be bigger than 12. At 12 you could at least divide into two divisions and have a 16 game conference schedule. I'm not a fan of the pairing up with three "rivals" thing we are doing in the A10. Especially since they seem to want one of our consistent rivals to be URI. It wouldn't be as bad if they guaranteed us that we would play X and Dayton home and away every year. Nine or ten decent to strong basketball schools is in my opinion the best set up for a basketball conference. With that you would have either a 16 or 18 game conference season and get to play everyone home and away. This is even more unlikely than the valley adding four new members but I would love for Dayton, X, and SLU to form a new conference with some of the Valley's top teams. Get something like this Bradley Creighton Dayton Missouri State Saint Louis Southern Illinois Wichita State Xavier (Ninth team from Indiana either Butler, Valpo, or Evansville) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 ten is the perfect number for a conference because you can easily have a balanced home and away schedule (18 games). any more teams somebody doesnt have to play somebody the same numbe of games and you always have that issue between teams. i agree depaul and marquette arent going anywhere right now. but the truth is i dont think slu is going anywhere until that big next shakeup either, so it doesnt matter at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brianstl Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 Do we want to be in a conference with MSU, SIU-C, and WSU? At least in the A-10 when we play schools in the state university system we get the east coast exposure out of it. The people exposed to SLU by us playing MSU, SIU-C, and WSU already know about SLU. They also receive state funding for their athletic programs, which makes it harder for SLU to compete across the board in all athletics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STLfan Posted May 7, 2007 Author Share Posted May 7, 2007 "i couldnt care less what the gym sizes are for any of our opponents and if you could please, explain whey we should care?" Because on the rare instances that the A10 actually allows us to be on TV it makes SLU look small time to be seen playing in a half empty high school gym during conference play. "i.e. the top of the a-10 is easily as good the middle is much better and both conferences have bottom feeders." True both conferences top teams are similar and both teams have bottom feeders but right now the valley is sending 2 or 3 teams to the tournament out of 10 we are sending 2 or 3 teams to the tournament out of 14 "now add in the fact that the a-10 is more visible nationally just because they are mostly based in metro areas instead of the middle of nowhere." How visable are they with the TV package we have and when some of those metro areas could care less about the A10? "now add in the likelihood that more schools (save creighton and bradley) are like institutions." I am more interested in like Basketball programs than like institutions. Programs that have commitment to win, pay coaches, draw fans, and build good facilities. "add in that slu is recruiting the joe normal student from the metro areas that the a-10 schools are from." SLU doesn't need to be in a basketball conference with other schools from those metro areas to get students from those areas. I bet we have students from states and metro areas that we aren't in a sports conference with. "sure the mvc has a fantastic leader in doug elgin and the a-10 has linda bruno. but one would hope that eventually the a-10 figures that stuff out." What in your experience so far with the A10 has lead you to believe they will figure that out anytime soon? Bruno has been the commissioner since 1994. I don't have a whole lot of faith in the A10 leadership making a good decision. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StLouBlue Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 >i couldnt care less what the gym sizes are for any of our >opponents and if you could please, explain whey we should >care? B-Roy the size of the arena/gym and how updated speaks to how committed that school is to it's MBB program. I am sorry but playing in small outdated gyms that are only half full is terrible & I don't care if it is in NY, Philly or Pitts. >as to how it is different, again i base my thinking on my >opinion after seeing slu play the number 1 and number 3 >teams of the mvc and comparing that to the top 8 teams in >the a-10 which i think were all at least as good if not >better than missouri state. > >i.e. the top of the a-10 is easily as good the middle is >much better and both conferences have bottom feeders. I don't think it is a good idea to base how conferences compare off of 2 games. That being said, I think the two conferences are similar. If we exchanged SIU & X, I think SIU would be in the top 2 of the A10 & X would be in the top 2 of the MVC last year. SLU probably would have finished around 500 in conference in the MVC like we did in the A10. Even though the RPI shows a big difference between the conferences, I don't think it is that large. Of course that also goes for comparison between mid-majors & the BCS conferences as well. >now add in the fact that the a-10 is more visible nationally >just because they are mostly based in metro areas instead of >the middle of nowhere. The MVC has certainly been getting better press the last 2 years both locally and nationally than the A10. >now add in the likelihood that more schools (save creighton >and bradley) are like institutions. If we are just talking MBB, then it is commitment to their program that is most important and there are too many schools not like SLU in the A10 for my taste. >add in that slu is recruiting the joe normal student from >the metro areas that the a-10 schools are from. > >i'm sorry, unless the plan is to make sure that 50-60 people >are able to travel to the away games by driving their >minivans to the school easier, i just dont see the advantage >to being in the mvc. > >sure the mvc has a fantastic leader in doug elgin and the >a-10 has linda bruno. but one would hope that eventually >the a-10 figures that stuff out. As we both have stated, it doesn't really matter because SLU isn't leaving the A10 until the next conference shuffle happens. I just hope the A10 schools & leadership step it up. The A10 can be a very good conference but right now it seems not all schools are on the same page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clock_Tower Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 Please give me any reason why XU, or UD, would want to play Creighton, Wichita State... much less Butler, Valpo or Evansville. Get real. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billiken_roy Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 when slu played st joes this past year, the gym was packed and the place was rocking. if you are talking about duquesne and st bonnie, well those games have about as much chance of being on national tv as a slu vs evansville or drake game. the tourney seed results last year had more to do with elgin mandating scheduling rules and linda bruno not governing anything than actual talent. like i said, give me dayton on up in the a-10 and all 8 of those teams would have finished at least 3rd in the mvc this past season imo. umass is the classic example of poor scheduling. that was a good team. they were sitting at home. imo, both umass and xavier would have given siu everything they wanted in deciding the conference champ last year if they all played in the same conference. as much as we want to b!tch about the tv package this year, a lot of that blame can be laid at the feet of charter as well. gotta have two parties willing to listen to be able to negotiate a deal. charter has had it too good for too long. so you think we get more students to enroll at slu from carbondale and bloomington than philly and new york? i dont. i do know that our fastest growing enrollment states the last two years were ohio and new jersey. no idea if the a-10 had anything to do with that, but still those states are more in tune with the a-10 than the mvc. as to why the a-10 might soon "get it", for one i have confidence that both biondi and levick will take more active roles in pushing the other programs to react rather than be the complacent conference it was before. the fact bruno attended majerus' news conference imo was surprising. does anyone think she has done that before? sure there will be those couple few programs that wont react, but it is my understanding that a number of programs are indeed energized by slu's standing up and asking "why not?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clock_Tower Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 "now add in the fact that the a-10 is more visible nationally just because they are mostly based in metro areas instead of the middle of nowhere." "How visable are they with the TV package we have and when some of those metro areas could care less about the A10?" No school in the Valley can come close to the level of XU. Xavier has gotten it done on the Court in both the regular season and the NCAA tourney (Final 8, Sweet 16 several times) for many years and with many different coaches. XU has facilities, tradition, strong fan/school support and very good TV. Cincy is a good size media market As good as SIUC has been these past 6 years and Creighton under Altman, there is simply no comparison. SLU is poised to get up on the same level as XU. Only a few years ago, St. Joes was undefeated most of the entire season, was #1 in the Country and made the Elite 8 and should have been in the Final Four. Temple was a long-time Top 25 school under Chaney and, hopefully, will get back to that level again soon. Other positives can be written about Charlotte, GW, UD etc. All of these schools have put several guys into the NBA over the years. Cannot recall many Valley guys doing the same. Unless and until the Valley can get NBA type talent back into their league, they will always be considered to a collection of second rate schools with strong and consistent recruiting and coaching of second rate players, some of whom turn out to be quite good college players with the right opportunity and coaching. Little schools always poised to pull an upset of the big boys. Would SLU have benefited with Randall Faulkner, et al? Of course. Are all the BCS schools moaning and whining about missing him and guys like him? No. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timmy Posted May 7, 2007 Share Posted May 7, 2007 >Please give me any reason why XU, or UD, would want to play >Creighton, Wichita State... much less Butler, Valpo or >Evansville. Get real. On the other hand, why would Creighton or Wichita State want to play Xavier or Dayton? They already play similar schools in the MVC... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clock_Tower Posted May 8, 2007 Share Posted May 8, 2007 Timmy. As mentioned in my post above (#19), XU is not similar to any MVC school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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